Posts from the ‘Students’ Category

Our recent 2018 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., brought together a great group of faculty, students, administrators, community partners and representatives from our national sponsor and partner organizations committed to advancing civic learning and democratic engagement through higher education.

Read on for highlights of our time together.

By The Numbers

536 participants representing 181 colleges and universities as well as 52 other organizations.

Since the publication of the A Crucible Moment report in 2012, many higher education professionals have engaged further in the CLDE field in the hopes of fulfilling the vision laid out by our colleagues to create a more socially just, civically engaged, and democratically-minded future. With this inspiration, colleagues have been engaging in the development of a framework to support our work as civic educators. This framework is based on a four question model and has been derived from work at the annual CLDE meeting and through the networks of the NASPA LEAD Initiative, AASCU’s American Democracy Project, and The Democracy Commitment. This framework builds on the components of A Crucible Moment in how are these threads — civic ethos, civic literacy and skill building, civic inquiry, civic action, and civic agency — actualized on our campuses and outside of the campus community. Throughout CLDE18 conference attendees explored the four question framework and how we can explore and enact a thriving democracy. For more information about the CLDE Theory of Change visit here.

Social Media Use at CLDE18

Using the social media tracking software (NUVI), Illinois State University’s Social Media Analytics Command Center (SMACC) identified the following trends associated with the 2018 CLDE conference:

Highlights

Between June 6 and June 9, there were 1,192 social mentions using the conference hashtag #CLDE18. 1,1147 posts came from Twitter, 42 from Instagram, and 3 from Tumblr.

221 unique authors contributed to the overall conversation, producing an average of 12 posts per hour for the duration of the conference.

The #CLDE18 conversation was viral. Of the 1,192 mentions using the #CLDE18 hashtag, 221 were from unique authors capable of reaching a combined potential of audience of 66,050 other social media users. 608 posts were shares of from these original contributors, and spread to an additional potential audience of 735,068 social media users. Taken together, public mentions about #CLDE18 had the potential to be viewed by more than 800,000 social media users.

The peak of the conversation occurred on June 9, during the closing plenary (347 mentions), and included the following keywords: “free speech,” “civic engagement,” “spectator sport,” “hate speech,” and “young leaders.”

Social media users participating in the conversation represented 31 states and the District of Columbia. Of the accounts that geotagged their posts or listed a location in their profile description, 33 were from California, 19 from Washington, D.C., 9 from Pennsylvania, 8 from Florida, 8 from Illinois, 8 from Massachusetts, 8 from Maryland, 7 from Indiana, 7 from New Jersey, and 6 from Virginia.

Social Network Analysis

The following graph presents a visual representation of the #CLDE18 Twitter conversation in terms of how accounts retweeted or mentioned each other when using the conference hashtag. The map is coded as follows: colors indicate affinity groups or clusters of Twitter accounts that had a significant number of connections in common. The size of the accounts on the map correlates with the overall number of connections – the larger the node, the more connections it had. Arrows pointing to an account indicate that account was being retweeted or mentioned. Arrows originating from an account indicate that account was retweeting or mentioning another account. Thicker arrows indicate more frequent retweets or mentions between the two accounts.

This report was prepared by the Social Media Analytics Command Center (SMACC) housed in the School of Communication at Illinois State University. For more information about the SMACC contact Dr. Nathan Carpenter, Director of Convergent Media (njcarpe@ilstu.edu).

Pre-Conference highlights:

The 2017 CLDE Meeting opened with seven pre-conference sessions that engaged participants in a variety of important civic learning and democratic engagement topics. Participants were invited to take part in one or both of a pair of popular Educational Testing Service (ETS)- sponsored Civic Engagement Assessment Pre-Conference Workshopsfocused on planning for institution-wide data collection and measuring civic outcomes during college, respectively titled Making Assessment Work for You: Strategies to Bring Meaning to your Civic Engagement Efforts and Civic Engagement Assessment: From Mission Statements to Meanings and Measures.

The Student Pre-Conference Workshop was organized for students, by students. Led by the 2018 CLDE Student Intern Team (Vera Barcega-Ramirez, student, College of the Canyons (Calif.); Hannah Jackson, student, University of Nevada, Reno (Nev.); Collin Sullivan, student, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Md), the session introduced students to #CLDEStudents / @CLDEStudents and provided a space to discuss issues focused on being an active participant in local and national communities, and introduced students tools to be effective activists in their communities.

Some of the more than 100 students that participated in #CLDE18

Opening Plenary & First Day highlights:

Participants had the opportunity to participate in a sponsored lunch, Ace the Midterms: TurboVote’s 2018 Voter Engagement Symposium, organized by our friends at TurboVote, provided an interactive symposium on what it takes to engaged student voters in not one, but all of their elections.

George L. Mehaffy, Vice President for Academic Leadership and Change, AASCU welcomed participants to Anaheim and reminded us that the most important office in our democracy is that of citizen. Three CivEd talks then kicked off Thursday afternoon’s opening plenary session. These three, short, dynamic and fast-paced presentations by members of the civic learning and democratic engagement community inspired and challenged our collective imagination and thinking. The talks were given by: Clare Cady, Director of Community Engagement, Temple University (Pa.) & Founder/Director, College and University Food Bank Alliance, Sian Proctor, Geology Professor, South Mountain Community College (Az.), and Joel Pérez, Vice President and Dean of Students/Title IX Coordinator, Whittier College (Calif.).

Friday highlights:

Friday morning participants started their day with a A Roadtrip to Civic Engagement. This session — offered in conjunction with our friends at the Roadtrip Nation — explored their storytelling model and how it can be utilized to explore our own civic pathways. This fireside chat included a discussion between Kevin Kruger, president, NASPA, Verdis L. Robinson, national director, The Democracy Commitment, AASCU, and Mike Marriner, co-founder, Roadtrip Nation.A message from Roadtrip Nation:

Roadtrip Nation was thrilled to be part of the CLDE conference in Anaheim.

As we increase our efforts into supporting Higher Education at the institutional level, Roadtrip Nation is currently identifying a core group of institutions to partner with, particularly around licensing our archive of thousands of career exploration interviews to benefit student, and our unique alumni engagement platform.

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP: THE CIVIC IMPERATIVE FOR LEARNING ABOUT AND ENGAGING WITHIN OUR LOCAL HABITATS PRESENTERS: Chris Hutchison, assistant dean of students, Chapman University (Calif.) Sian Proctor, geology professor, South Mountain Community College (Ariz.)

FOUR CORNERS AND FOUR MOVES: NEW APPROACHES TO MEDIA LITERACY PRESENTERS: Michael Caulfield, director of blended and networked learning, Washington State University – Vancouver Gregg Grenier, director of community engagement, Mount Ida College (Mass.)

Saturday highlights:

Our final plenary session on Saturday, Free Speech or Hate Speech? A Cross-Campus Dialogue on Community, Faculty, and Student Activism, which engaged attendees in a timely dialogue about free speech, academic freedom, and inclusive campus environments. The discussion was moderated by Nancy Thomas, Director, Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE), Jonathan M. Tisch College for Civic Life at Tufts University (Mass.) while responses were given by Jonathan Alger, President, James Madison University (Va.); Stefan Bradley, Associate Professor and Chair of African American Studies, Loyola Marymount University (Calif.); and Hannah Jackson, CLDE 2018 intern and student, University of Nevada Reno.

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SPONSORS

The 2018 CLDE Meeting in Anaheim, Calif. could not have been a success without the continued support from our sponsors. They have shown an unwavering commitment to securing an effective method of fostering democracy. Our sponsors’ contributions were instrumental in creating meaningful dialogue that helped set the agenda for future goals, initiatives and partnerships. We would like to thank the following:

ADP, TDC, and NASPA have deep admiration and gratitude for each organization and the support they provided to the 2018 CLDE Meeting. We look forward to future collaborations

CLDE 2019 Committee

We’re looking for a few volunteers—maybe you?—to serve as thought leaders and planners as we wrestle with how best to convene a meeting intended to generate ideas and energy for tackling some of the biggest issues we face as a democratic society: social and economic injustice; bitter partisanship in our elections and governance; and diminishing funding for higher education, just to name a few. If interested, send your resume and statement of interest to Stephanie King at sking@naspa.org.

CLDE18 Conference Pins

We sold out of the 200 pins designed by Chapman University graphic design student Genevieve Geller ‘20. Proceeds from the beautiful and popular pin will be donated to Project Grow to fund their programs that educate the community about their local environment through hands-on ecological restoration programs. Project Grow is a program of the Tides Center and both are community partners of Chapman University, located near the CLDE18 conference site.

The design of the pin bears the shape of California, the third largest state in the country. The text, Anaheim, CA CLDE 2018, is situated toward Southern California, acknowledging the conference location. The poppies adorning the top of the pin celebrate the California state flower. The blue and green colors of the CLDE conference are complemented by the vibrant orange color of poppy blooms that exist throughout the State.

Program and Conference HandoutsIf a presenter uploaded their materials they can be found in the mobile app and online at http://apps.naspa.org/engage/arch_search.cfm under the 2018 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Meeting. Please email sking@naspa.org with any additional materials you’d like uploaded into the app.

Finally, to see more pictures from the meeting, visit the ADP Facebook Page (CLDE18 album); please send any photos you took to adp@aascu.org so that we can upload them to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.

Stay in Touch – Contact Information Changes

CLDE18 conference organizers Jen Domagal-Goldman and Verdis Robinson both have new titles and organizations and urge conference participants to keep in touch

ADP

ADP is currently searching for an Executive Director and emails in the meantime should be directed at adp@aascu.org.

Jen Domagal-Goldman (formerly national manager of AASCU’s American Democracy Project)

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Two potential civic engagement opportunities of interest for undergraduate students. Note: These are not related to ADP. Please direct all questions to the appropriate programs.

Summer Service Scholars (SSS) is an academic internship program in New York’s State Capital through the Siena College Center for Academic Community Engagement. Accepted Summer Service Scholars spend 9 weeks with a nonprofit community partner in the Capital Region, working on projects that build capacity within the organization. SSS provides participants with engaging and valuable experience working with nonprofits, and an opportunity to engage in conversations about social justice with a cohort of other students interested in making a difference in the community.

In conjunction with their full-time service, participants enroll in a Siena College course, Internships in Community Development, for 0-6 credits, meeting once a week on Siena’s campus for seminars that focus on professional and community development. Scholars have the opportunity to utilize on-campus housing at Siena, and can apply to a competitive stipend pool once accepted to the program.

The William & Mary Office of Community Engagement is now accepting applications for our 2018-19 public service fellowships:

· Fellow for Alternative Breaks

· Fellow for Local Engagement

· Fellow for Education Programs

· Housing Fellow

Recent college graduates have the opportunity to serve for 9 months in Williamsburg, VA. Three of those positions are based in our office and focus on engaging students in the work of active citizenship through student advising and program oversight. The fourth fellowship is community-based, increasing the capacity of local non-profit Housing Partnerships Inc.

The 18-19 fellows will serve from August 6, 2018- May 3, 2019. They will receive a stipend as well as free housing in our graduate complex.

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We are thrilled to introduce you to our three student interns for the 2018 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) Meeting (#CLDE18). As Vera, Hannah, and Collin introduce themselves below, please know that together they represent a vested interest in civic engagement among students in our networks to engage meaningfully on our campuses, in our classrooms, in our broader communities, and in our democracy.

Please join us in welcoming Vera, Hannah, and Collin! They have already begun to work with the CLDE18 meeting planning committee on the program, arranging a student symposium, and specifically on creating networking, learning, and organizing opportunities for the students that attend the conference in Anaheim, CA, from June 6-9th. We look forward to working with these fantastic students. Be sure to submit a program proposal by January 29th here.

-Jen, Stephanie, and Verdis

My name is Vera Barcega-Ramirez, and I am a human resource management student at College of the Canyons (COC) in Santa Clarita, CA. I am also the president and founder of The HUB Club, a club that has a shared vision of building leaders; a student representative at the COC Foundation First-Year-Promise Taskforce; VP-membership at Oak Hills Elementary PTA; an accounting/HR/purchasing support independent contractor; a wife to my wonderful husband of 15 years, Eric; and, a mother to my sweet 11 year-old daughter, Skylla.

My name is Hannah Jackson and I am a third-year student at University of Nevada, Renostudying education, journalism, and political science (which is the closest thing that I could get to earning a degree in civics). I am grateful to have had incredible opportunities to be involved in civic and democratic engagement during my time at the University. I am the state representative for Nevada’s We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution program, I have had the opportunity to work on a local ballot question campaign to fund infrastructure in local public schools, and I currently serve in our student government as Speaker of the Senate. All of these experiences constantly make my studies and my life more meaningful. I hope that through serving as a #CLDE18 student intern, I can help as many students as possible have the same enriching experience.

My name is Collin Sullivan and I am a junior information systems and economics major, minoring in entrepreneurship & innovation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During my first year at UMBC, I worked to create a new, sustainable website for the Student Government Association (SGA). As an elected SGA Senator, I created a standing committee to promote collaboration and ensure accountability within SGA. I later served as Assistant Speaker of the Senate. In that position, I led a nonpartisan group of students promoting the 2016 presidential election through debate watch parties, trivia nights, and an election results extravaganza. I also created a new event, Coffee & Conversation: Our Political Spectrum, where students, faculty, and staff heard from diverse panelists and discussed how members of the UMBC community would find common ground on hot-button issues after a divisive election season. Additionally, I work with the local school system to promote civic agency and digital citizenship. Last year, I served on a policy committee to advocate for fairer, more democratic elections for the student member on the Board of Education position.

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The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is an important Civic Program Partner of AASCU’s American Democracy Project. We’re thrilled that they offer dedicated scholarships for ADP students for their Leadership and the American Presidency program in Washington, DC. Be sure to take a closer look at their work and to share this opportunity with potentially interested students from across the political spectrum!

Through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s partnership with the American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU), students from campuses associated with the American Democracy Project and The Democracy Commitment are eligible for dedicated scholarships for the Leadership and the American Presidency (LTAP) program in Washington, DC for undergraduate students.

Our organizations’ shared missions of cultivating citizen leaders who are engaged members of their communities, prompts us to award selected students from these campuses scholarships no less than $2500 and $4000 for the Summer and Fall terms, respectively.

Summer Internship in Washington, DC: December 5th early application deadline

About the Program:

Undergraduate students can now experience Washington, DC like never before. Leadership and the American Presidency is a new immersive and experiential opportunity for students to spend the summer or semester in the nation’s capital. Co-sponsored by The Fund for American Studies, Leadership and the American Presidency is looking to cultivate the next generation of citizen leaders.

Real History: Examine some of the greatest leadership challenges in history from the perspective of the Presidency.

Real Leaders: Connect with some of the most thoughtful, well-regarded, and recognizable leaders of today!

Real World: We match you with an internship placement that is aligned with your skill set and interests.

The mission of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is to complete President Reagan’s unfinished work and to preserve the timeless principles he championed: individual liberty, economic opportunity, global democracy and national pride. Specifically, the mission of the new Reagan Institute operating as an entity of the Foundation from both the Reagan Library in California as well as in Washington, D.C., is to move well beyond the Foundation’s mission to preserve the memory of our 40th President. The Reagan Institute proactively promotes his ideals, vision, and leadership example for the benefit of generations to come through youth education and academic alliances, scholarly work, and substantive, issue-driven forums.

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College to Congress is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to creating pathways for students to intern on Capitol Hill who otherwise could not afford the opportunity. The majority of Congressional internships are unpaid, forcing students to front the bill of a $10,000.00 opportunity. This creates a barrier of entry for students with limited financial means and without political connections.

The program offers leadership training, mentorships, an alumni network, and stipends to cover flights, meals, housing, and a professional wardrobe – in other words all costs are covered. Interns are also paired with a mentor from the opposite party to demonstrate the power of moving beyond partisan conflict and forging compromise.

The American Democracy Project (ADP) is a multi-campus initiative focused on public higher education’s role in preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens for our democracy. The project began in 2003 as an initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), in partnership with The New York Times.

The goal of the American Democracy Project is to produce graduates who are committed to being knowledgeable, involved citizens in their communities. Since its inception, ADP has hosted 13 national and 18 regional meetings, a national assessment project, and hundreds of campus initiatives including voter education and registration, curriculum revision projects, campus audits, special days of action and reflection, speaker series and many recognition and award programs.